Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo,” ran the eulogy of Apple’s Think Different television advertisement in 1997. In the same spirit, here’s to Margrethe Vestager.
The EU competition commissioner insists she is not deliberately making trouble by deciding this week that Ireland should levy €13bn in taxes that it allowed the company to underpay over a decade. “No rules have been changed — not one,” she retorted to the accusation that she is ripping up international tax treaties and diverting US tax revenues to Europe. She looked unperturbed by the rumpus.
Ms Vestager seems to have taken lessons from Apple about presentation. Her original 2014 complaint against the company was jammed with details. This week’s update was pared down and clean, making the argument simply. Steve Jobs might have appreciated the elegant Danish design, although the content infuriated the US and Irish governments — and Tim Cook, Jobs’s successor as Apple chief executive.